


alone / with you

by minshuas



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Implications of disordered eating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9590861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minshuas/pseuds/minshuas
Summary: reasons to not kiss him:1. you weren’t raised to love tender.3. he’s too good at forgiving and you’re too good at violence.9. you still aren’t sure he isn’t a dream.10. if you kiss him, you might wake up.reasons to kiss him: because he's beautiful, because he asked, because he preceded please with, i’m not afraid of you. (YES & NO // NATALIE WEE)





	

**Author's Note:**

> ENJOY. i brought myself onto the soonwoo ship without even realizing it was a thing (i'm glad it is a thing). i'm @17HlGHLlGHT on twitter and i'm SO GLAD that i have an ao3 now because i love this interface and the look/feel of it. uh, this took me way too long to write and rewrite and i'm still not happy with it, BUT i didn't write 10,000 words for it to lay in my drafts forever. 
> 
> all the other pairings don't actually come up explicitly ever, but i thought i'd throw them in the tags jic someone might want to avoid them for any reason. 
> 
> i listened to alone / with you and to belong by daughter for hours every day as i tried to finish this fic. the poem that i've used is credited in the summary, but again it is not mine. (YES & NO // NATALIE WEE) It only inspired me to write this! so, uh, have my first soonwoo fic!

**reasons to not kiss him:**

  1. you were not raised to love tender;



 

in and out of foster homes, the sharp sting of the slap comes as no shock to his system. there’s no energy left in his body for him to be surprised by the inhumane action. it feels almost like a cold iron is being prodded against his cheek, stretching his skin but taking great care not to break it. there’s too much elasticity in his skin; it has been pulled on too many times as though he were made of clay or of dough. the noise rings in his ears too long after the initial impact of palm against cheek, even after she’s departed from his company (probably going to drown herself in another bottle of whiskey  _ and  _ she might as well wrap another expensive necklace around her neck. to him, all of those stringy strands of silver and gold look gaudy. some days, when he’s feeling especially dark, he thinks that they look like a noose wrapped around the pale skin of her neck. he wonders when it will be pulled taut and he will never have to look into her already dead eyes (the  _ she  _ in question is his foster mother in a long line of foster mothers). at the impact of her hand, tears do not well in his eyes. if anything, he feels numb to the touch, but there’s an aching in his chest that he labels as ‘pain.’ then when he reflects on it he mistakenly mislabels is ‘love’ because  _ what parent doesn’t love their child?  _ asks seungkwan rhetorically, eyes wide as he reaches up to touch the bruised skin. 

soonyoung bats his hand away from wonwoo's damaged skin with a sharp gaze affixed to him as he does so. there’s something secret in his gaze that reminds wonwoo of a guard dog, but soonyoung’s all bark and no bite. he won’t do anything to seungkwan: the warning is simply a warning. it could easily be found on a piece of furniture or on the back label of cigarettes (that should have never touched his skin let alone his lips). seungkwan seems to realize that he’s probably being a little too invasive and a little too rude for this situation. he withdraws. 

the bruise has blossomed from the first time that he’s caught his own image in the mirror, peering anxiously to assess the damage. soonyoung had been the first to witness it and he had taken wonwoo’s wrists into his hands. (his hands that were a little too warm to belong alongside the cold air; when his fingers were wrapped around his wrist, both of them were reminded of how small wonwoo really was, maybe he had had a growth spurt, but his bones are jutting, sharp against the soft skin of soonyoung’s adolescent palm. it is particularly soft in between his thumb and forefinger, wonwoo notices and considers himself odd for noticing.) he promised to cover the ugly mark with makeup to the best of his twelve year old ability (there being no ability). 

when wonwoo had first assessed the damage, he thought it would be fixable, but now with soonyoung’s fussy, pudgy fingers slicked in concealer he isn’t too sure. it’s mean and angry and very purple-yellow-brown. it's hard to maintain his attention on his reflection; soonyoung’s fingers cut across the image of his face. it distorts and suddenly wonwoo is fractured. the way he looks now is closer to how he always feels, because lately he hasn’t been feeling too much like a whole person. when soonyoung tries to ghost his fingers underneath his eye, wonwoo is dragged back into reality. he shrinks away from the touch. it’s not the worst pain that he’s felt, but it is the first time that he’s seen it reflected in soonyoung’s eyes. the way they are dilated tells him that by pulling away, he’s frightened him. the trust that is built between them (four years) is shaky in that moment as wonwoo tries to still enough for him to finish the administration of the concealer. from what he can see, even with the makeup, it’s still ugly.  _ he’s  _ still ugly. 

“sorry,” he whispers, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he zeroes in on wonwoo. his whole world suddenly becomes fixated on the shape of wonwoo’s lips, nose, eye, eyebrow, cheekbone, jawline and that ugly mark that stains his skin with violet and muddy shades of brown. wonwoo hasn’t yet learned how to tell him not to apologize to him for things he cannot control. he’s been having trouble finding his own voice nowadays, especially underneath this household’s roof.  _ at least i’m still near soonyoung _ , he thinks, and he’s grateful, but he’s also nervous because as soon as he gets out of that house, he could be sent anywhere. it was up to the system, not him. 

he couldn’t make his parents love him no matter how hard he tried. seungkwan said he sounded like he had bad luck; seungkwan usually didn’t help calm his nerves or make him feel better. so, wonwoo swallows his voice because that’s how he’s always went about things when they got bad. she likes it quiet,  _ loves  _ when he is quiet. he ends up deluding himself into thinking that the quieter he is, the more she’ll love him. then maybe she'll adopt him. he thinks it’ll keep soonyoung,with his gentle touch, around just that much longer. 

for the first time, but not the last, soonyoung touches him and he feels the pain radiate out deep beneath his uppermost layers of skin. the pain is burning and it travels through his synapses so quickly that his whole face is aflame (he hopes it is solely from pain). the pain stretches the wide expanse of the side of his face, then it crawls underneath his eye and he almost starts sobbing into soonyoung’s shoulder. it would ruin his makeup job though, so he thinks twice about it, gritting his teeth.

a secret conversation with himself: he grimaces. soonyoung pretends not to notice as he’s pocketing his mother’s makeup that is a shade too dark for wonwoo’s pallor complexion. neither of them complain because it’s better than either of them could have done on their own. 

the teacher still notices the bruise, now hidden underneath a thick layer of miscolored makeup. it looks beige almost, purple peeking out of the edges. it reminds him of soonyoung’s tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he so dutifully applied the cream (or gel, or whatever the companies called it) against his skin. wonwoo bites down on his lip to keep the truth from slipping out. excuses come easily to him after that. “i tripped and fell on the playground,” he says with a small, polite smile. soonyoung can tell, by now, that it is fake (because the way that wonwoo laughs is always the same: his grin stretches at the sides of his mouth so much and his nose crinkles, immediately a hand comes up to hide the beaming smile). lying, he’s learned, is a highly valuable skill. his foster parents seem to swear by it, a religion as holy as christianity or buddhism. it makes them happier and it when he does it for their sake, it makes him feel loved by them. the teacher doesn’t look convinced by his words, but she doesn’t press. the perplexed expression on her face seems to ask  _ why did you try to cover it up then? if it was an accident?  _ and he would have known how to answer her. he would have told her that he can’t impress the girls with such an ugly bruise of his face: it wasn’t manly or cool, or  _ don’t you think it's harshing my vibe?  _ it was always smart to be prepared for any conversation. just like it was always smart to be prepared for a fire (to map out where the family will meet, to know where the fire extinguisher is, to have batteries in the smoke detectors). so, wonwoo learned it. 

soonyong tries to placate the teacher with a grin that reminds her that they are just boys. it is a type of reassurance that doesn’t have to work, but it does. it’s too simple not to work. he doesn’t realize that by doing this, he’s not helping wonwoo in the slightest. but he also knows that if soonyoung tried to take this information anywhere, then wonwoo would ball the fabric of his shirt up in his tiny fists and cry uncontrollably as he begs for this to all remain a secret for _just a little while longer, please_. seungkwan already knows to keep his mouth shut, plus wonwoo knows exactly what to say or do to keep the wrong string of words from slipping out of seungkwan’s mouth. seugnkwan was scared of him, or maybe just terrified by the way that wonwoo never seemed to look directly at anyone, just through them or by the way that his pupils seemed to grow too dark for how humans looked. he looked like a wolf, a monster in disguise. 

where seungkwan fears him, soonyoung adores him, making sure to give him attention even when attention was unneeded. he met wonwoo’s heated, desperate pleas with warmth. just when wonwoo didn’t think he would get another chance at life, he offered it up to him, gave wonwoo a reason to stay living (other than his brother who was nestled back at another foster home that decided to split them up; he was safe). wonwoo could argue with pre-puberty soonyoung, who still had a high-pitched voice and tiny fists adorned with tiny fingers, because he knew how to disengage wonwoo. he knew exactly what to do in order to make him feel heard, knows how to apologize, and to calm him down.

soonyoung tries to talk to him about it in the afternoon, all confrontation where seungkwan had shied away. wonwoo shoves him into the fence near the playground and immediately feels the wave of regret wash over him, knocking him over. the words slip out before he can catch them.  _ stop mentioning it for fuck’s sake _ . there’s too much anger in his tone, directed at soonyoung who is curling his fingers against the fence’s chains. his words do silence him on the subject, thankfully. it gives wonwoo a chance to take off towards his home, running as quickly as his nonathletic legs will carry him. he doesn’t look back (except when he does) and doesn’t notice the way that soonyong is still staring after him, eyes chasing him as he rounds a corner and disappears from sight for good. he pretends that he cannot see the pain in that gaze: the pain that reminds him that he’s a piece of shit and that he should just rot in some horrible group home instead of being passed off to lovely couples who want an almost-teenager. his case manager is worried that they won’t find him a permanent home by the time he’s a teenager, then he’ll end up losing whatever qualities he had currently that pulled all these bread-winning families in to him. 

this will not be the first time that he pushes soonyoung against a surface to spit words in his face and watch the shock settle there. it’s like he thinks that wonwoo is incapable of hurting him, or that if given the choice to, he won’t, but all wonwoo has ever known is how to hurt. so, this will not be the first time that he finds himself alone in his room, fist in his mouth as his incisors try to dig valleys into his flesh. he tries to choke back the ragged sobs that keep climbing up his throat. the look on his face is captured in still-shots in his mind, forevermore. soon, he will be able to put together a collage of all the impressions sitting in the back of his mind of his best friend looking betrayed and hurt from something he said, something he did.  _ i’m an idiot _ , he thinks to himself as he buries his teeth into his skin until there are marks, until blood is drawn and threatens to slide down into his closed fist, sticky hot. this is how he falls asleep, small pool of blood in the palm of his hand.

when he wakes up, it is smeared into the sheets and caked onto his hand. he has to wash them a couple of times before he feels clean again, unscatched. he has to put ointment on them because they sting from just being exposed to fresh air. soonyoung is waiting for him when he comes outside, locking the door behind him, bandaged hand held close to his body. they walk together in an uncomfortable silence, but his presence means that wonwoo is forgiven. there’s a small part of him that wishes that soonyoung would ask about his hand, but it goes undiscussed which might be for the better. 

when they reach school, soonyoung smiles big and bright and happy at him and he wishes that he could return it, but he grimaces from the pain in his hand, in his jaw. his eyes are puffy and are in desperate need of a cold washcloth pressed against them for hours. the happiness that soonyoung piles upon him is something that he is undeserving of. he’s never done anything for soonyoung for him to treat him so well, all he’s ever done is complain and yell and draw tears. he doesn’t know how to have a best friend, let alone how to treat that friend. just when he thinks he might be figuring it out, something sets him back on his ass and he has to figure it all out for himself, once again. all he knows is how to hurt him, _especially him_ , because he is the only thing in wonwoo’s life that wonwoo has ever wanted to keep forever.

 

     2. when he’s around all you do is tremble. when he’s around you want to get on your knees. look how much power he has over you. it’s dangerous;

 

he’s pacing around the apartment that the two of them currently  _ do not share  _ even though he’s here every night and his toiletries are nestled next to wonwoo’s in the tiny square of land that is their bathroom. more of his things are over here, unpacked and misplaced, instead of boxed away within his own apartment that he does share with minghao who looks at wonwoo as though he wants to drain his whole body of blood and then kill him again somehow (although when they had met, wonwoo thought that minghao was a shy, meek boy who matched his cutesy appearance well). whenever minghao is around, wonwoo feels himself hole up again. soonyoung notices, but doesn’t say anything, or maybe he doesn’t notice. either way, it all works itself out because soonyoung definitely prefers one of his apartments to the other. but minghao seems to always remind wonwoo that he isn’t the only important person in soonyoung’s life (he’s like a guard dog, but only in charge of protecting soonyoung from wonwoo and his icy, lost stare and desperate hands)  _ and  _ that soonyoung has  _ told him some things _ . whatever he means by that, wonwoo doesn’t care to know. it causes his stomach to flip and he just prays that soonyoung isn’t giving everyone the sappy story about how his best friend is an abandoned foster child who fell prey to the system and came out all the worse because of everything. 

soonyoung is pacing and wonwoo feels himself trembling in his seat. he has no idea what conversation will be brought up, but it is the sole fact that he is upset at him that is making him shake. it has him squirming in his seat, feeling as though his bones are on fire, but his skin isn’t stretched thin enough to smother it, so eventually it will end up eating his insides. minghao might be aware of what he is capable of, but he has no idea the effect that soonyoung has on him. he wants to bite down on his nails until all of them are splintered down to the cuticle. he twines his fingers together, shoves them into fists, hides them into armpits, but he still is shaking. 

sometime after he changes positions, he notices that he’s still shaking with his hands in his armpits. maybe it is so hard to stop the quivering of his hands because his whole body is shaking too. 

he’s livid and wonwoo hasn’t seen him like this for awhile. the medical tape around wonwoo’s ribs is a reminder to why he’s raging around the apartment, not destroying anything, but he throws pillows and blankets, knocking them away weakly with his still tiny hands curled into fists. he needs to rage because he is never really given the opportunity except with wonwoo. childhood had been happiness, bright, and the pain would fade with the waning moon; adulthood had soured him (it’s something that wonwoo tells himself, but he doesn’t necessarily know if it is true. there is something different about soonyoung, but it is hard to put his finger on most nights, but when he smiles, he still smiles like the sun and blinds wonwoo for a fleeting moment that he wishes he could soak in indefinitely: to never see this malformed, twisted smile on his face would be a relief).

“why didn’t you tell me?” his voice is quiet. it feels like the two of them are in a library or a church. his chest rises and falls rapidly and it is the only anchor to reality that wonwoo has in this moment. he cannot meet his gaze, but he does follow the steady rhythm of his breathing. it makes it easier for wonwoo to breathe alongside him.

his answer comes out before his heart can check to make sure it’s honest. “it wasn’t a big deal.” his heart feels like it is in his throat when he replies. regret washes into his mouth and it makes him feel like he should be crying even though he hasn’t cried in years (tears all spent up from the years of prepubescence spent trying not to cry, and failing, in bathroom stalls and under covers). if he could be honest, then he thinks that soonyoung wouldn’t have to have these types of conversations with him and he would be able to see more of the happy soonyoung that heads to dance practice early in the morning and comes home in time for lunch, remembering to order the stew without fish in it. so, he doesn’t know why he lies, but he does, and it probably has something to do with it being the only thing he’s known (and because soonyoung is causing him to want to kneel on the floor and curl up into a ball; it isn’t right, this power that he holds over him, it is a power that should be reserved for prince’s giving duties to their knights). 

hands skirt against his waist. if they travel upwards, then he will end up curling in on himself. the pain in his side is unbearable and unbelievable. it makes his vision go white whenever he moves or bumps it against anything, even the lightest tap sends him spiralling and wishing to hide away from the world. his touch simply has wonwoo sputtering, unable to hide his trembling anymore. the medical tape that wonwoo has hastily wrapped around the possibly broken bone is no longer a solution to this problem. soonyoung had somehow caught sight of the bandages and he refused to let go of it. he’d sooner rather unfurl the tape to unveil the full damage done to his side, but wonwoo is careful and shies away from any touch that is not fleeting. he feels sick when he feels soonyoung’s fingers brush his skin, but also as though he would do anything if he asked him to in that moment, but soonyoung is quiet, brows furrowed. 

his arms are too long for wonwoo’s frail body; they discover this when he tries to hug himself in a desperate attempt to stop shivering, but instead of his own arms, there are soonyoung’s arms twisting around him,careful not to press against his injured side. soonyoung was scared, wonwoo knew, but so was wonwoo. soonyoung’s touch makes him move in closer, licking his lips. all he’s ever wanted from him is the comfort of his touch when he’s injured, backed into a wall, and frothing at the mouth. it undoes him more than he cares to admit. it ruins him so quickly that he feels himself melting like an ice cube in the summer heat. his voice is not gentle when he speaks again. “you getting  _ jumped  _ and  _ attacked _ wasn’t a  _ big deal _ ?  _ i didn’t need to know _ ?” he sounds incredulous and wonwoo ends up wincing at his tone, almost abandoning his sweet touch. 

it isn’t himself that keeps him rooted there, unable to move or breathe or speak. it is soonyoung’s fingers enclosing around his bony wrist. the knobbiness of it should be disgusting, but soonyoung hardly reacts to the feeling, his too long fingers laying against the smooth skin of his wrist where his heart is beating as fast as hummingbird wings. his voice is too serious, too abrasive. it shakes wonwoo down to his core and he doesn’t move an inch with soonyoung’s face this close to his own and his hand holding him in place. the only options that wonwoo has any longer is to drop his facade and stay there, talking this over with him, or he can lie. 

he swallows, realizing that he would prefer to be anywhere else because the enchanting pull that soonyoung has on him is the reason why he is kneeling onto the floor underneath him. soonyoung follows him down, grasping at his arms to steady him as they both crouch there. wonwoo’s eyes flutter shut as soonyoung’s free hand travels down to his waist. he leans into the touch there, trying to keep himself rooted before him. “it happens,” he says which is the exact opposite of what soonyoung wants to hear. the gift of his skinship is quickly stolen away as he steps back from wonwoo, hands up in the air in a sign of surrender.  _ have it your way,  _ he seems to be saying. 

wonwoo’s eyes snap open just in time to watch the door shake against its frame, resembling him too similarly. he gags on nonexistent food that he’s supposedly consumed during the span of the last twenty-four hours. when soonyoung is mad, he doesn’t eat. it isn’t a solution to any problem, but he loses the drive to function when he upsets soonyoung like this. all of him shuts down: showers are no longer needed, food is disposable rather than edible, sleep becomes the easiest thing, but sometimes he writes to stuff his pipe dream of being a renowned author. none of his ideas stick to the paper; all of it bleeds down the page, just like his hands. 

for awhile, this is how things are dealt with. most of the time, neither of them talks anything through to the other. jargon, lies, and makeshift truths are given at the expense of honesty. wonwoo tries not to get beat up anymore, even though he’s somehow always the target for anyone in a little bit of a bad mood. somehow, they don’t lose sight of each other, even if they lose the ability to tell the truth to one another. wonwoo thinks he’ll relearn the skill, eventually. 

 

     3. he’s too good at forgiving and you’re too good at violence.

 

it seems like everything turns into an argument with him. what may come originally packaged as an apology is unwrapped violently, it transforms into an evil taunt that has soonyoung’s mouth turning down in a frown. he doesn’t know what possesses him to be so sharp-tongued and ugly with his words as of late, but he is. for someone who loves literature, he keeps choking on the beautiful alliterations that he wishes to litter against soonyoung’s collarbones. instead, he prods him with a language that only knows how to burn and hurt and take. 

“look, i just came by to say sorry.” he is saying, holding up a bag of takeout. wonwoo eyes it suspiciously, trying to internally banter with himself whether or not to accept this form of apology (even though he is the one who should be apologizing, not soonyoung). because the two of them  _ don’t  _ share his apartment, when they fight, soonyoung is able to run back to minghao. this has almost become common since the bruises reappeared back onto the canvas of his skin, reminding him so much of his childhood. only soonyoung isn’t here to apply makeup to his blemishes anymore. he tries to directly interfere between the meeting of fists against skin. it scares him how this has become normal for wonwoo, that he can just shrug off his pain. 

he finally lets soonyoung in, turning away from him and burying himself into the pile of blankets atop his couch. soonyoung trails after him with the bag in his hand. 

“i already ate.” he doesn’t know why he’s let him in. 

“oh.” he sounds lost. “alright.” 

it’s awkward, and wonwoo notices the dip in soonyoung’s lip before he notices its tremblings (only a second later, he realizes that he can’t pull his gaze from the curve of soonyoung’s lips. they look incredibly soft and he wants to slide his thumb against his bottom lip, slow, holding the moment out because he doesn’t know if he’ll ever have this chance again). when he does look away from soonyoung’s lips, he finally sees the tears that are running down his face. soonyoung has no control over his own tears and the paths that they take. he puts the bag down and swipes at them desperately. 

the two of them are on the same piece of furniture with the same mountain of blankets, but wonwoo has never felt more far away from soonyoung. he’s forgiven him so many times for the same fights (the ones that were instigated by  _ him _ , not soonyoung). wonwoo bites down on his tongue so hard that he draws blood. he wants to reach out and mop up some of his tears, he doesn’t know if that’s comforting or not, but he knows that whenever soonyoung touches him, his soul seems to quiet. when he isn’t touching him, his soul is screaming, yearning for him and the pacification that he brings. 

wonwoo knows that he’s in love with soonyoung by this point, has known for awhile, but he refuses to come face-to-face with it. it isn’t an issue to him. he’s in love with soonyoung which means that he’ll simply stare a second too long and covet his touch. he’s doing no harm to him by not sharing this secret with him, even though they have always shared secrets between them. soonyoung knew all of the ugly parts of wonwoo and wonwoo knew about soonyoung’s hidden optimisms, the plans that he wouldn’t share with his family. 

the angry red mark on his wrist is visible when he rubs at his eyes. it was an accident, both of them knew that much. as soon as his hands grasped him, he was released, but still, soonyoung is marked by wonwoo’s desperation and anger. his hands had been shaking when they reached out to grab at his wrist (that twisted sickeningly in his hold; he dropped it immediately). that’s why he doesn’t touch soonyoung now. he hates putting those marks on his skin; he doesn’t even think that he could nip at his skin for fear of scarring him irreversibly. wonwoo has his fair share of scars (he’s counted them twice in his life. once with soonyoung on his bed, they were fourteen. the second time had been on his own, he was twenty-three). now his gaze won’t pull away from the mark. he feels like he’s choking on air. he’s suddenly been plunged underwater and his own hands are holding him down somehow. 

he should be comforting soonyoung, quelling his tears. 

“i did that…” soonyoung doesn’t look down to his wrist, but drops his hands so that the bruise is hidden from view. wonwoo has never learned how to be gentle with anything, not even soonyoung. it is unforgivable for him to even so much as mark his body. 

wonwoo wasn’t even angry when he grabbed at soonyoung, who stumbled backwards, still frothing at the mouth with angry words that he should learn to bite back when tensions rise like this. wonwoo had cried, silently, tears rolling down his cheeks in desperate, wet trails reaching his chin and dropping onto the ground. soonyoung had been trying to leave and wonwoo should have let him go. 

angry red marks only remind him of the only gifts that his last foster mother had given him on special occasions (or every other night for any myriad of reasons). they remind him of marks that soonyoung spent so long covering up for him, vowing to protect him from them in the future, when he could, if he could. 

it could be worse. he could have really hurt soonyoung, and he knows it, knows what he is truly capable of. he swears to himself that he will never hurt him again, even accidentally, even in an emotional downpour, even if he is trying to keep him from leaving forever (he wouldn’t, but the thought scares wonwoo to death. the weight on his chest is so heavy when he realizes how he would feel without soonyoung as a constant  in his life).

with tears drying, he shakes his head, taking out the containers from the paper takeout bag. “it was us.” he hands one of the containers to him, not believing for a second that he’s really eaten, or that if he has, then he’s eaten enough to compensate for the days where he’s starved himself just because he forgot to eat, then forgot to eat again when he feels the hollowness of his stomach. he ends up taking the container, opening it slowly. 

wonwoo wishes that he could believe him.

 

     4. you know what they say about monsters. you know what happens to the boys who love them. are you going to do that to him?

 

his smile is cherry red underneath the bright summer sky. it comes from the popsicle that melted on his tongue, on his lips as he had sat on the sidewalk outside of his apartment. kids ran around the neighborhood and soonyoung was at work. this is as peaceful as he has felt in awhile (until he catches his reflection in a nearby window and his mouth pulls down overtaking the monstrous smile that had been adorning his face. the red was too bright and dark at the same time, it looked like fresh blood all over his lips. it reminds him of the time he had fallen onto the concrete and his nose had cracked sickeningly, spilling blood all down his lips and chin). unconsciously, he flicks his tongue out to try to rid himself of the awful blood-like color. it doesn’t work; it is stained there for the next couple of hours. 

it’s a quieter day, a nicer day. he feels like it is manageable, so when seungkwan shows up at his door, he lets him in even though he asks  _ where’s soonyoung _ with wide, bulging eyes. his frantic gaze takes wonwoo in, but he doesn’t really process anything that he’s seeing, wonwoo can tell, because he’s been that stunned before. he doesn’t answer him, but instead just props the door open. seungkwan looks all around the room, but soonyoung’s nowhere to be found. wonwoo wants to tell him  _ soonyoung is everywhere _ , but he knows that that type of sentiment is cheesy. his gaze litters itself around the room, joining seungkwan’s. soonyoung is in the cheap throw pillows on the couch, in the linens and toiletries, in the music that plays over his speakers on his music library, he’s in the most viewed television stations and the in the open windows with their adornments of tiny yellow flowers in pots, he’s in the pots and pans that are mismatched now, in the protein snacks that wonwoo definitely doesn’t eat, he’s in the bed that the two of them don’t share but instead just sleep in at the same time, and he’s in the shirt of his that is draped around wonwoo’s frame, even though it should be too small for him (but after losing so much weight, he’s able to easily slip into soonyoung’s clothes). wonwoo isn’t even sure that his body isn’t a part of soonyoung. most of him has been used by so many, but he still has some remaining parts that belonged to soonyoung’s touches: a shoulder, that ticklish dip in his side, underneath his kneecaps, his inner elbow. it might be all the extra parts, but they are all in his possession by his hands, calloused from work, smaller than wonwoo’s hands with fingers that stretched forever like how plants reach for their sun. soonyoung is his sun. 

somehow, he ends up with seungkwan’s head in his lap while he cries fat tears that pool in the creases of wonwoo’s crossed legs uncomfortably. they aren’t friends, they’ve never really been, yet it is wonwoo with seungkwan’s head in his lap instead of soonyoung comforting him. he should have asked him to come back later. 

seungkwan gives him all the details of his recent heartbreak, only it starts simple and clean and then gets mucky, dirty. he sees how seungkwan hasn’t slept and how he talks around all of the bad stuff as though it didn’t really seem to matter in the larger scheme of things. wonwoo shivers in his skin, listening only to answer his rhetorical questions. sobs bubble in seungkwan’s throat when he answers one of them. nothing that wonwoo says is helping him and he knows that soonyoung would know how to handle this situation, how to make seungkwan feel happy, but wonwoo was much too far removed from feelings for far too long. he doesn’t feel much at seungkwan’s words or his tears, but he isn’t heartless. his fingers card through seungkwan’s hair in a way that he hopes is soothing. he doesn’t move from his lap, but he wishes that he would because then, at the very least, he could stop pretending to care about this. his words put a weight on his shoulders (he wonders if this is how he is treating soonyoung, if this is how he would treat soonyoung, if seungkwan’s broken relationship is a metaphor for the makeshift friendship that wonwoo has with soonyoung). 

wonwoo watches seungkwan cry, but static fills his ears in place of his sobs. he dips a hand to rub his back, slow, just how soonyoung always did when they were younger. he grows quiet, only hiccuping now and again, but wonwoo can still feel the tears pooling in his lap. he wants to take a shower, or at least, he feels like he should. he knows the conventions of human contact well enough to know that he cannot pull away from seungkwan right now though. he’ll regret it if he does (and later soonyoung will ask  _ why did you let him in if you weren’t going to comfort him? why would you just leave him there on our couch? _ ), so he stays, faithfully.

seungkwan makes a choked noise and wonwoo feels useless to him. 

he remembers the popsicles in his freezer, taste still clinging to his lips. 

at the offer of comfort food, seungkwan pulls himself from wonwoo. it doesn’t do much in the way of helping, but at least it has stopped his tears for now. 

again, his smile turns monstrous. seungkwan tearfully laughs (it’s all wet and phlegmy), fingers coming up to press against the sides of his mouth, but wonwoo flinches away before he can make contact with his skin. the shock on seungkwan’s face is evident and wonwoo tries to look apologetic as he chases after him with repetitive  _ i’m sorry _ ’s and other excuses ( _ it’s just a defense mechanism. i’m working on it, really! _ ) seungkwan understands because he’s seen the bruises blossom along his fair skin. 

at first, seungkwan had thought they were beautiful, like art. the purple contrast with his pale skin was remarkable, like a marble statue with color thrown on it. wonwoo didn’t disagree with him, but soonyoung did. soonyoung disagreed so vehemently that he raised his voice so loud that wonwoo cowered in fear, climbing underneath the art table in order to block out the noise. he was so angry and wonwoo’s adolescent eyes could do nothing but stare at him, widened and scared. he kept yelling at seungkwan even when wonwoo had slipped away. 

the teachers were unable to get wonwoo out from underneath the table, so soonyoung had ended up with disciplinary action taken up against him. that had him crawling out, but the teachers wouldn’t listen to his proclamations of  _ it’s okay, i overreacted! nothing's really wrong! we weren’t fighting!  _ as usual, adults don’t listen to him. they box their ears up and crawl underneath the art table too. he can feel the hot pressure behind his eyes and the tight squeeze of his throat closing up on him, making it hard to breathe. 

now, wonwoo squirms away from seungkwan. he wipes his own tears with the back of his chubby hands after he finishes the popsicle. when soonyoung comes home, wonwoo knows that he’ll take better care of seungkwan, better care than he was able to give him at least. 

 

     5. your hands don’t know how to be gentle. think about the last beautiful thing that shattered in your palms. the fresh rosebuds crumbling between your fingers like a bruise. you wolf-boy, you war machine. you wouldn’t know how to hold something magic and not destroy it.

 

there is something about his touch that is pacifying, healing almost, but when wonwoo tries to return that feeling, he cannot. his hands do not hold the same magic that soonyoung’s do. his touches are clumsy, awkward, and heavy. it doesn’t matter if it is a finger, a toe, a hand, or his head, but every contact between their skin that wonwoo returns leaves angry red marks and bruises on his skin. he doesn’t know how to not dig his fingers into soonyoung’s skin when they are sleeping together. every morning they wake up and wonwoo will catch the marks on his side, arm, wrist, waist that he’s caused. 

when they were children, they would cuddle closely together and intertwine fingers. wonwoo was still innocent enough back then and this would calm his nerves so he wouldn’t dig his fingers into soonyoung’s soft skin, trying to turn over the soil of his skin. maybe it would be cleansing, his blood, he doubts it, but his brain must see some importance there or else he wouldn’t do it every time he lost his consciousness. he considers asking soonyoung to hold his hands at night again, just like when they were children.

his touch doesn’t solely destroy soonyoung. it kills the house plants that they’ve invested in because taking care of something that is living helps wonwoo when soonyoung is away for weeks at a time because his life is continuing while wonwoo’s is paused for now, in this little apartment. the first time he breaks a leaf off of his anthurium, he sits down and cries. it takes him awhile to figure out that he’s stopped responding to stimuli. no sound, no touch, nothing brings him out of his reverie as he sits there and holds the crumpled up leaf. it’s torn. he wishes that plants bled because he wants some mark to dress him as a destroyer. 

soonyoung comes home that day. he doesn’t even shut the door when he gets inside, just drops all of his things and rushes in. the thrill of his entrance not even jolting wonwoo. his  _ honey, i’m home!  _ that wonwoo would laugh at on a good day, and guffaw at, clutching his sides on an even better day, goes unnoticed. soonyoung knows that something is wrong. 

it isn’t until soonyoung’s hands are on him that he starts to react to the world again. the play button is pressed finally and he uncurls his fist to show soonyoung what he’s destroyed. “i’m sorry.” wonwoo says, but doesn’t know why he is apologizing. his tears are dried on his cheeks and it feels uncomfortable. soonyoung gets in close, not caring about personal space any longer and he brushes away wonwoo’s hair from his face, shushing him gently. 

“i’m going to go get a washcloth, alright?” he waits for him to nod in response before he dares to pull away from him. wonwoo notices that he does this a lot lately. it is probably because of how often he notices the wild look in wonwoo’s eyes when he tries to leave; he really does resemble a wild animal, maybe a baby deer with his dark, big eyes peering out from behind his glasses (he's too feral to be a deer, but in this moment, he looks innocent). soonyoung has not gained his trust yet in this department. he doesn’t blame wonwoo though, because humans can often leave any situation they feel is hard to cope with. it isn’t as though soonyoung has never thought about leaving, of how easy that would make everything (for him, not for wonwoo, because for wonwoo, it would destroy him. soonyoung almost wonders if he would hurt himself). he returns with a warm washcloth and dabs wonwoo’s cheeks with it, trying to wash away the snot and tears. he’s gentle and patient. 

wonwoo deserves anything but this treatment. he’s a monster, always has been. 

 

     6. if you hurt him it might kill you

 

it scares him. 

“i know i’m hurting him.” the therapist sitting across from him nods, leaning forward. “we wake up and i see the imprints of my fingertips. a police officer could lift my prints from his skin, if that were possible. i don’t ever touch him when i’m awake now.”

“maybe you two need some distance.” 

wonwoo can feel his throat closing up as he nods. “yeah, maybe.” the two of them have distance though. soonyoung goes to dance competitions and helps choreograph wild dances for music videos and other things that he’ll lay next to wonwoo and watch with him after they are produced and published. wonwoo’s heart will swell with pride, the distance between them forgotten now that they are so close. when they are far away, they feel existences away from one another, but when they are close, they are too close. wonwoo resides underneath his skin like a parasite. what the therapist means is that they should separate for good. wonwoo is leaning too heavily on him, like a crutch. 

he licks his lips, nodding some more. “yeah.” 

 

     7. if you hurt him you might kill yourself.

 

for once, wonwoo makes a decision that is equally for him and soonyoung. even though the apartment is his and soonyoung could always crash at minghao’s place, wonwoo packs away his stuff in the middle of the night and leaves. he thinks that this will be the easiest way. he doesn’t write a letter, he doesn’t answer any texts or calls, he doesn’t say goodbye. there’s no closure and he thinks that is what beats him up for the four years he spends crashed on mingyu’s living room floor.  _ i’ll just work on my writing _ , he tells mingyu who has a boyfriend who pays all of his bills with his successful government job. his boyfriend that always is dressed up cleanly and has his life together. he should be a positive influence on wonwoo, they both should be. there’s a little bit of soonyoung in the both of them. 

mingyu says  _ alright, okay _ because that’s what good college friends do for each other when one of them turns out to be incredibly well off and the other turns out to be barely scraping by. if wonwoo needs time to write, then he gives him that, but months turn into a year and that year turns into four. mingyu’s government boyfriend doesn’t say a word about it, but he worries his lip a lot more, drinks a lot more coffee. 

when wonwoo thinks they are finally going to tell him to move out, it is joshua who approaches him. “he knows you are here,” he says instead. wonwoo doesn’t need a second to think about it. he looks up from the painting he’s working on. the smile on his face disappears. it shatters in the suspension. words don’t come to his lips and it feels like he’s been here for four days, not four years. all of his accomplishments set back and erased from history. the book he’s getting published burning in the fireplace ( _ they have a fucking fireplace in this house.  _ it’s been four years and he still can’t get over it). when he still hasn’t said anything, joshua takes the paintbrush from his hand. “he messaged us on facebook and then came to the house when you were at the grocery store.” wonwoo thinks his hands are going to start trembling again, so he sits on them. joshua’s face is understanding, but apologetic. his patience reminds him of soonyoung just like mingyu’s smile and energy reminds him of soonyoung. 

“okay… i’ll see him.” he nods, finally, taking his paintbrush back from joshua. “i’ll do it.”

 

     8. you are very bad at rehabilitation. this is one addiction you’d fail to give up. he’s going to ruin you for all other kisses and all other boys and you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to forget his name.

 

four years and the only person that wonwoo had even considered kissing was joshua’s friend. he had been over too many times, laughed too loud with his tilted back and happiness crowning him. there was so much of him that reminded him of soonyoung, but there was so much in him that wasn’t soonyoung. after two too many drinks, wonwoo leans a little too close to him and his gummy smile and realizes that he’d have done it if he knew he’d never see soonyoung again, but this was rehabilitation. even if soonyoung had taken his first kiss (drunkenly, at sixteen, with both of them wondering why it had even happened, if it was even reality), he didn’t want his second or third or fourth to be taken by a boy that he only wanted to kiss because he reminded him of soonyoung. none of them deserved that. 

if this rehabilitation was as successful as the therapist wanted, then he would have kissed seokmin on mingyu’s carpeted living room floor and he would have fallen in love with him maybe, bought a house together, got a cozy government job, got published, and got matching cozies. they would have taken bubble baths together and his fingers wouldn’t dig into his sides. but this rehabilitation was for him and what he wanted, not his therapist. he started eating regularly, mingyu feeding him steadily every day (he cooked every meal, being a retired chef). he started writing again, but not only writing, taking care of plants and painting too. for awhile, he tried his hand at the guitar, but found out it was only a pipe dream. he gained his weight back, took care to exercise a bit here and there, when he had the time, got a couple jobs, and stopped flinching every time someone touched him or tried to touch him. 

mingyu slings an arm around him, joshua hugs him, seokmin holds his hand, all of it is friendly, nice. he feels like this is a makeshift home. this is what love and happiness feel like when everyone isn’t trying to nurse each other all at once. he relearns how to breathe without someone coaching him through it. he cancels his therapy visits, flushes the rest of his pills, and becomes happier all around without them weighing him down any longer. 

and somehow, he allows himself to be convinced to see soonyoung again, after four years. 

 

     9. you still aren’t sure he isn’t a dream.

 

often, wonwoo dreamt of soonyoung. but one night, he dreams about him and wakes up in a cold sweat, feeling too hot. he ruts against his mattress desperate without even realizing what is happening. his body feels like it controls him in this moment. body over mind as his hands reach down to relive his dream (minus the presence of soonyoung, he’s lucky that he didn’t stay over). he’s too young to realize what this is (and he has to clean his sheets, even if he doesn’t understand because he knows that no one is going to be willing to depart any knowledge to him). red hot embarrassment floods his veins as he tries to wipe his mind clean from his thoughts. he knew what the dream was, knew what happened, but he didn’t think his response would be so physical. 

he doesn’t dream of soonyoung for awhile after that. 

when he left, all he did was think about soonyoung and dream about soonyoung. he was surprised that he didn’t sleepwalk to his phone to message him or reach out to him. he’s thankful that his resting mind can think of him, but also know the boundaries that exist as well. all of the dreams are harmless, they do not have him desperate handedly moving against any rhythms. they are fragments of him: a smile, a sentence, a touch. after four years of dreaming about him, he almost forgets his voice. he searches desperately for any video of soonyoung that exists either in his possession or on the internet. anything would sate his desire since it was so simple of one. he didn’t want to forget soonyoung, but he already couldn’t remember the way that his hands felt when soonyoung held them or the way that he sang, slightly off-key in the kitchen in the mornings. it tugs at wonwoo until he can’t sleep without listening to his voice.

joshua finds him with his room torn apart (the living room is now his bedroom more than it is the living room). his voice is quiet when he asks if wonwoo needs help. it only takes minutes to find a clip of his voice once joshua joins the hunt. it’s a cd that soonyoung had made for wonwoo when they were kids. all he ever had to himself was a cd player and soonyoung had put together various cds for different moods he might be in. all through the years the discs had been scratched and tethered to time, but the  _ happiness  _ one is still intact with soonyoung’s messy scrawl sitting atop it. joshua hands it to him, smiling softly. they listen to his voice in the beginning together, announcing that wonwoo and him will be  _ best friend forever!  _ and that he loves him and hopes that everything works out. he doesn’t know exactly what was going on during that time, but he could guess countless situations that he was probably talking about. 

during those four years, soonyoung stopped feeling so real, so when he sends him a text telling him to meet at a nearby cafe, wonwoo still doesn’t believe it is happening. he doesn’t believe it until he sees soonyoung nervously fussing at the sleeves of his sweater, already seated at a booth. wonwoo heads over there to join him, suddenly feeling too young and too exposed (even though he’s so near to thirty and he’s so used to this). 

“hey,” his mouth is dry.

soonyoung jumps in his seat, turning to face him before he can sit down. he stands up, seems to want to hug or shake hands, but he doesn’t step forward to greet him and he doesn’t sit back down. there’s no precedent set for how they act after four years of absence. wonwoo should be the awkward one. he should be the one fumbling for reactions, trying to stay in the moment. he knows what to do here though. his muscles move from memory as his arms wrap around soonyoung and  _ he smells the same as he always had _ . wonwoo wants to cry but he’s in the middle of a nearly empty cafe. (at least it is mostly empty, so no one has to witness this moment and if they do, then they won’t have time to realize what’s happening. wonwoo and soonyoung don’t even realize what’s happening.) 

wonwoo pulls away and smiles tearfully. soonyoung already has tears dripping down his nose. 

they laugh. 

 

     10. if you kiss him, you might wake up.

 

he pinches himself and soonyoung catches him do it, reaching over the platter of eggs in front of wonwoo and his own breakfast platter to catch his hand. it is a fleeting touch, but it makes wonwoo shiver. he’s been waiting so long for this that now that he has it, it almost is too much. “what are you doing?” soonyoung’s eyes are merely slits now as he talks through a laugh. neither one of them can stop smiling. it’s taken them this long to get right here and soonyoung’s always been so good at forgiving wonwoo. this time, he really does understand. he’s hurt, but to take it out on wonwoo when he knew what he had done and what it had done to him would have been useless. it would have set them back further. joshua and mingyu and minghao had all spoken to him about the subject of wonwoo. all of them understood too. 

somehow, between them, everything was easy to understand. 

“i just keep trying to remind myself that this isn’t a dream.” wonwoo admits, sheepishly. he picks up his fork when soonyoung drops his hand. if he focuses on his eggs, then he doesn’t have to watch soonyoung catch the blush on his cheeks. there’s so much that’s been left unsaid for much too long, but it doesn’t need explaining to be known. soonyoung’s hand is still hovering in the air between the two of their bodies. instead of retracting it back, he pushes forward and his fingers dance along his jawline, tangoing up to his cheeks. wonwoo’s eyes flutter shut at the sensation; his breathing quiets. “i don’t know why you wanted to come back to me.” he admits into the silence. “i was a monster… i really was.” 

“i wasn’t afraid of you.” he whispers back, voice quivering as though it’s the exact opposite sentiment of what he really means to say. wonwoo smiles and soonyoung can feel it on his fingertips. it makes his own smile reappear. 

against soonyoung’s fingertips, wonwoo laughs. “i was afraid of me.” 

 

**reasons to kiss him:**

  1. because he’s beautiful. 



 

“you shouldn’t have been,” his touch is gone. wonwoo feels the loss and immediately opens his eyes. he would do anything to have soonyoung’s hands on him again. the loss is too massive. for some reason, he fears that soonyoung will up and leave him after this interaction and that thought is too much for his head to bear. he swallows hard and since the food has been paid for, he gets up before soonyoung can. 

the look on his face is one of surprise. wonwoo registers it as soon as he stands. the way that soonyoung looks at him almost looks hurt and wonwoo wants to take it back. he wants to rewind time just a bit and relive in the good moment that has just passed. soonyoung looks uneasy and scared and so much like wonwoo did once upon a time, probably how he looks now. even like this, soonyoung still glistens like the sun. he’s blinding and beautiful.

wonwoo does the only thing he can think of. 

“soon we won’t be able to call the day young anymore if we don’t move out,” he says with a stoney face. soonyoung’s face screws up as he lets the english settle. it’s been awhile since either of them have spoken the language. he’s often heard chinese from soonyoung, but english comes in rare waves even though they both have a basic understanding of it. when the realization washes over soonyoung, he scrunches his nose up. 

everything that happens next happens in slow motion and it starts with soonyoung slamming a hand down on the top of the table as peals of laughter fall from his mouth. they cannot be contained any longer and wonwoo finds himself laughing too. the joke was no good and it was formed without any forethought. soonyoung often had made these jokes in english when he was learning the language. wonwoo had always thought they were the funniest jokes; he always thought everything that soonyoung said was the best thing. 

right now, he’s enraptured, unable to look away from soonyoung as he continues laughing, shaking his head. when he finally calms down it isn’t for long as he looks wonwoo in the eye and pouts. “just when i had decided on my big plan to won _ woo  _ you.”  

 

  1. because he asked. 



 

he walks wonwoo home because it is the right thing to do. wonwoo looks too analytical the whole walk. they hardly talk because soonyoung is watching wonwoo think and thinking about what wonwoo could possibly be thinking about. his head becomes muddled from thinking about thinking, so he watches the pavement instead as they walk. for some reason, the mood of the afternoon hasn’t stayed with them through the walk. neither of them smile or laugh. 

they make it to the doorway and soonyoung decides that he’s scared, but he doesn’t want to miss anymore of whatever is going on between them. “can i kiss you?” he beaks the silence as wonwoo is reaching to put his keys into the doorknob and asking him if he wants to come up for some tea (and something about a fireplace).

his keys clatter to the ground.

for a moment, he doesn’t turn around. so soonyoung continues. “i’ve wanted to kiss you for so long, wonwoo-yah. it’s been  _ way  _ more than four shitty years. it’s been a decade or more.” he laughs dryly, and his palms are starting to sweat. it’s all so embarrassing and wonwoo doesn’t even move, doesn't respond. “i’ve been dreaming of this moment, of when to do it. i think that if i did it when we were younger than it might have held us together better, like some type of metaphorical fucking glue. or maybe if i kissed you even once when we lived together, then it would have ended up making  _ something  _ different, i don’t know.” 

“i’m rambling, wonwoo-yah,” he says, running his fingers through his hair just to have something for his hands to do. “ _ please _ .”

wonwoo is still silent; he’s a mountain in this moment and soonyoung is willing to make the trek. 

he’ll reach the peak. 

“i think about when we did that one night. it was so meaningless and i don’t remember  _ anything else  _ about that night. all that plays over and over in my head is how it felt and how you had made me feel that way. i haven’t, i  _ couldn’t,  _ feel that way with anyone else. it just replays in my mind because i always think about kissing you again and i just never could. it never felt right. this feels right though.  _ we  _ feel  _ right _ , wonwoo-yah. all i want to do is kiss you. that’s all. we don’t have to name this. we don’t have to do anything else. if you don’t want to kiss, that’s okay, but if you have  _ any  _ desire to do it, then please... let me.” 

finally, wonwoo moves, turning around. soonyoung can’t look at his face. 

“i’ve loved you for so long now, wonwoo-yah. let me tell you. i’m not afraid of you and i’ve never been. so…  _ please _ .” he swallows, finally working up the courage to gauge wonwoo’s expression. 

 

  1. because he preceded please with, i’m not afraid of you.



 

he doesn’t know how tears have found their way into wonwoo’s dark eyes, but he’s crying. soonyoung hadn’t even noticed the shaking of his shoulders. he never picked up on the subtle signs that would lead to this conclusion. he never stopped and held his breath to hear if wonwoo was still breathing too. he thinks wonwoo is going to say something, but all he does is stand there. the space between them seems to grow rather than shrink. 

wonwoo moves. 

soonyoung is supposed to be the dancer, the martial artist, but wonwoo is swift on his feet as he flips their positions, pressing soonyoung up against the door. before he can even realize what is happening, wonwoo is caging him in with his hands. “okay,” he breathes. “soon-ah.” it is only a short distance between them now. they can feel how close they are to each other. soonyoung’s own heartbeat is pounding in his ears and he thinks he may as well be having a heart attack because he’s going to end up dying in this moment. wonwoo ducks his head, meeting soonyoung, closing the distance for good. 

his lips are soft. wonwoo thinks it is such a stupid thing to realize and focus on, but soonyoung’s lips part slightly and where they fold into wonwoo’s they are soft and tender. it makes him feel delicate. wonwoo is careful, eyes close, but mind open. he sucks on soonyoung’s bottom lip, then grazes his teeth against the pliant flesh. soonyoung gasps and it makes wonwoo lightheaded and dizzy. he licks into soonyoung’s open mouth and he’s clumsy, but soonyoung only clings to him even more tightly when he knocks their teeth together. they swallow each other’s chuckles, insistent lips pressing against each other again and again. their hands don’t know what to do. soonyoung’s are bunched up in the fabric of wonwoo’s nice shirt. there will be creases in it when he releases it. wonwoo’s hands are now on soonyoung’s waist, making sure to keep him locked in his moment. they kiss for too long. wonwoo’s lungs start to ache. 

when he draws away to take a breath, he trails kisses up to soonyoung’s cheek, then his forehead. his breath comes out ragged against his skin and soonyoung is giggling again. all of it feels silly. it makes soonyoung’s knees feel weak. all the love songs make sense and all that jazz. 

wonwoo rests his forehead against soonyoung’s and this is where is all begins again, for better.

 


End file.
